Life & Times

Paan Singh Tomar, Kishore Kumar, Raj Kapoor, Guru Dutt... Bollywood gears up to unveil real-life stories on screen over the next few years. But is the Indian cinemagoer ready for a volley of biopics?

A star athlete gets embroiled in a land dispute back home in Morena, Madhya Pradesh. He picks up the rifle, gathers a gang and dies a classic dacoit death: an encounter. It was on a Sunday in 1991 that Tigmanshu Dhulia came across Paan Singh Tomar's story in an Anand Bazaar Patrika piece.

The filmmaker was then assisting Shekhar Kapur on Bandit Queen. For 18 years, he walked around with a paragraph-long story on the athlete-dacoit, determined to make a movie some day. Paan Singh Tomar, produced by UTV, starring Irrfan Khan and Mahie Gill, is up for release this May. It's Tigmanshu's first biopic, UTV's third and Bollywood's second in two years.

Our biopics, their biopics

Biopics aren't the Hindi film industry's favourite genre. It's hard enough finding a producer, and even if filmmakers find moneybag men, there's no guarantee of box office success. Shift the scene to the West which churns out one real-life story after another. Amelia (pilot Amelia Earhart), Little Ashes (artist Salvador Dali and poet Federico Garcu00c3­a Lorca), Creation (Charles Darwin) and Coco avant Chanel (Coco Chanel) are just a few real-life stories that made it to Hollywood screens in 2009. Bollywood's biopic count last year? Zero unless you count Soham Shah's Baabarr based on a UP gangster.u00a0u00a0

Tigmanshu blames it on producers, who he says, lack vision. "Producers complain that youngsters don't watch period films. I think every film has an audience. In Hollywood, they know how to exploit their movies no matter what genre." He admits that a biopic usually comes with an attached price tag, a minimum amount that's steep. That's because the film needs to recreate the era it is talking about through costumes and sets.

To make it more saleable, superstars need to be castu00e2u0080u00a6 basically, it's a tedious process. "An escapist movie can safely be big budget. It's a formula film for mass consumption. Progressive cinema may garner great reviews, be appreciated, but it doesn't always recover costs," says Tigmanshu, who has previously made Haasil and Charas.

Box office passu00e2u0080u00a6 or fail

Rajkumar Santoshi knows what that feels like. The ace director decided to make The Legend of Bhagat Singh after reading a book on the freedom fighter, while shooting a scene from Pukar. But he found it difficult to find a financier until TIPS stepped in.

"I was told it's a non-story, unconvincing. But I had the conviction, I was determined to tell the story of a freedom fighter who the new generation knows little about."

Despite mounting it on a large canvas complete with an ensemble cast, music by AR Rahman and all the action and drama, The Legend of Bhagat Singh didn't fare well. "This despite the fact that everyone who watched it, loved it. Yet, no one was inclined to go to the cinemas. The three other movies on Bhagat Singh that released around the same time ruined everything."u00a0

Tigmanshu says India doesn't have a tradition of biopics because we don't respect history like Europe and America do. "We spit at heritage buildings. How will we ever respect our martyrs? We are too complacent a race, we tend to forget our history."u00a0

We're inclined to agree. After all, despite the international recognition for Paresh Mokashi's debut Harishchandrachi Factory, the Marathi film based on Dadasaheb Phalke's life, failed to take off after its recent release in Mumbai. Not finding a producer but desperate to make his movie, Paresh sold his home, much like
the protagonist of his film did, to make his debut.u00a0u00a0

Trade analyst and Bollywood Hungama editor Taran Adarsh says biopics are a tiny section of Bollywood because everything boils down to 'rupaiyya, paisa, ana'. "Unless your film is about a really famous person, why would the audience be interested? Besides, most biopics run into trouble just before release.

Filmmakers and producers find it easier investing their money in escapist cinema." Taran names Jodhaa Akbar as the only film in the genre to have done good business in the last few years. Released in 2008, the Hrithik Roshan-Aishwarya Rai-starrer had it all: glamour, star-value, a huge canvas, music and its share of controversy.u00a0

But trade analyst and executive editor of Box Office India, Vajir Singh, says, "It was made for commercial reasons and included all commercial elements." He compares it to Mughal-e-Azam. "The love story of Anarkali and Salim is a well known one. But Mughal-e-Azam worked because it brought in the father-son conflict over love; a classic Indian commercial story. It's the same case with Jodhaa Akbar."

For a biopic to work, says Vajir, it needs to have an element of controversy. "It's why Bandit Queen worked. Otherwise, Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Patel, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, Babasaheb Ambedkaru00e2u0080u00a6 we study about them in school, why would we want to go watch a movie about them unless it's revealing something entirely different?"

Tweaking the truth

Sometimes it helps if the biopic twists the plot a bit, because after all, it is cinema. As Tigmanshu puts it, "When you're making a biopic on a heroic character, the problem you face is that there's nothing wrong with him. Take Akbar, for instance. He was secular, fair. How could you portray him with faults? Where does conflict come in? And without conflict, how can you have an interesting movie? That's why Ashutosh (Gowariker) brought their unconsummated marriage into focus in Jodhaa Akbar. It was a smart move."u00a0

Vikas Bahl, chief creative officer, UTV Motion Pictures, (UTV co-produced Jodhaa Akbar, Paan Singh Tomar and Harishchandrachi Factory), states that it was a story with a one-line inspiration: that of two cultures coming together. "It had to be embellished with other details, like a Hindu queen singing a bhajan in a Muslim home, but I wouldn't call that fictionalising." The same was done for Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra's Rang De Basanti. "It was a personal story of revenge for the group of friends. Bhagat Singh and the other freedom fighters on whom the friends make a documentary (within the movie), made it profound, deeper," says Tigmanshu.

Quasi biopics

Embellishments, fictionalising, sometimes even not admitting that a film is based on true eventsu00e2u0080u00a6 that's what makes the few biopics that sell, sell. Taran Adarsh agrees. "To avoid debate or finger pointing at having got their facts wrong, several filmmakers prefer not to call their films biopics."
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Movies in question: Ram Gopal Varma's Company, which dealt with the friendship and subsequent enmity between two gangsters reminiscent of Dawood Ibrahim and Chhota Rajan, Mani Ratnam's Guru, which was obviously the success story of Dhirubai Ambani, and the forthcoming Rajneeti in which Katrina Kaif's character reminds you of Sonia Gandhi.u00a0

Success or failure notwithstanding, Tigmanshu who claims he can't possibly make a "YRF film", is already teeming with ideas for future biopics. One is about hockey player Dhyan Chand, though he hasn't found a point of conflict to his story yet. The other is on Captain M N Mulla of the INS Khukri in the 1971 India-Pakistan war. "He lit up a cigarette and went down with the ship. That image is so overpowering I'd love to make a movie on him." Good luck with finding a producer and an audience.u00a0

Their stories may be toldu00a0

> Early last year, Kishore Kumar was to be the subject of four different biopics. The hit playback singer-actor was apparently meant to be portrayed on screen in films by Shoojit Sarcar, Nagesh Kukunoor, Sudhir Mishra and Shashanka Ghosh.u00a0

>u00a0It was said that Rang De Basanti director Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra would make a biopic on Guru Dutt, with Aamir Khan and Katrina Kaif portraying the actor-director and Waheeda Rahman. Mehra denied it.

> Rajkumar Santoshi plans to make a biopic on Emperor Ashoka, which, if he fails to find a producer, he'll finance himself. ABCL had also planned one based on the life of Kunal, Ashoka's son, directed by Chandraprakash Dwiwedi. That is stalled for now.